The Fire have announced the release of last season's opening day goalkeeper Andrew Dykstra. The acquisition of Jon Conway via trade on draft day led to some speculation that the Fire would keep three 'keepers on the roster in order to make one available for reserve league action while the other competed for the back up spot to Sean Johnson.

MLS announced today that the Houston Dynamo are moving to the Eastern Conference to make way for the inclusion of Vancouver and Portland in the West. The new conference alignment keeps the balance of power in the West, so not much has changed in terms of the Fire's standing in the East.

East : Chicago, Columbus, DC, Houston, New England, New York, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Toronto

West : Chivas, Colorado, Dallas, Los Angeles, RSL, San Jose, Seattle, Portland, Vancouver

Houston suffered through a down year last season and their current state is not much different than the Fire's.

The Fire announced their pre-season schedule today. Players are due to report to Toyota Park on Thursday before starting training next week at the Bridgeview Sports Dome. Among the players reporting will be new additions Cory Gibbs, Daniel Paladini, Josip Mikulic, Jalil Anibaba, Jason Herrick, Jon Conway, Davis Paul, Yannick Salmon, Amani Walker, Sam Arthur, and Open Try-Out winner Pari Pantazopoulos.

Reports surfaced last week that Nery Castillo was attempting to engineer a loan deal back to Greek club Aris FC. A post on Castillo's Facebook page mentioned a possible move but Aris' manager Hector Cuper quickly shot down the suggestion a few days later saying

"The road has not opened. Castillo is neither close nor far from Aris.

Real Salt Lake announced today that CJ Brown is joining their coaching staff as an assistant to head coach Jason Kries. Brown replaces Robin Fraser who left to take the top spot at Chivas USA. The Fire released this statement from Technical Director Frank Klopas:

"This is a great opportunity for CJ, and everyone at the Fire is very happy for him.

Last month MLSsoccer.com chose the Fire's hiring of Julian Posada as the most underreported story of 2010. The choice was a bit odd given that since Posada was hired last September there just hasn't been much to report. The Fire's 2011 Season Ticket marketing campaign had already been kick started with the "All In for 2011" tag line and the subsequent three and a half months have provided very little in terms of a change in the Fire's local presence or public perception.

The Fire landed University of North Carolina defender Jalil Anibaba with the ninth pick in today's MLS SuperDraft. Anibaba, the MVP of the MLS Combine, was ranked by many as a top five pick and the Fire were understandably surprised to find him available at number nine. According to Technical Director Frank Klopas, Anibaba can play both central defense and right back equally well.

The Fire have announced the signings of former Carolina Railhawks midfielder Dan Paladini and Croation central defender Josip Mikulic. Paladini is a 2 time USL Best XI player who excels on free kicks and Mikulic joins the team from NK Zagreb.

Paladini, 26 and Mikulic, 24 along with Cory Gibbs are presumably the first of several signings that will be announced during the next several weeks as the Fire looks to fill as many as possibly a dozen remaining open roster spots.

Frank Klopas and the Fire technical staff are currently in Florida for the MLS Combine ahead of the draft on January 13 but Klopas feels the Fire have a pretty good handle on which players they're interested in right now. "These players have been off for a few months so it's tough to judge guys on these games, we've seen most of them before now so we're looking for the best fit based on who's available when we pick" said Klopas.

The Fire are holding their annual open tryouts at the Bridgeview Sports Dome today and tomorrow. The Sun-Times' Len Ziehm has a short preview here and HotTimeInOldTown has a look at the tryout format here.

The Fire are also providing tryout coverage here. With 209 players participating and travellers coming from as far as China and Bolivia it's a busy weekend for assistant coach Larry Sunderland, who is running the tryouts.